


It Was Always You (I Promise)

by Safraninflare



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Begging, Biting, Blood, Dirty Talk, F/M, Light Bondage, Memory Loss, Morning Sex, POV First Person, Past Relationship(s), Porn With Plot, Sick Character, dying, implied bisexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 16:11:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safraninflare/pseuds/Safraninflare
Summary: Asra left Vesuvia weeks ago, but she didn't leave with him. No, she stayed behind to help Dr. Devorak, to help cure the plague. He fell into that place in her life, the hole where the white-haired magician once sat. But, nothing good can ever last, not when death and illness lurk around every corner.Or, morning sex turns into unknown goodbye sex when MC falls gravely ill, plus aftermath.





	It Was Always You (I Promise)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses the name "Nix" for the apprentice, as that's what the official youtube channel uses on their walkthroughs. It's as close to an "Official" name for them that we have, which is why I selected it. 
> 
> Also, please note that I've only played through Julian's route (and the first book of Asra's) at the time of writing this. Things may be inaccurate. I'm sorry. I just REALLY wanted to write it before it left my head.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

  Morning light flutters in through the curtains, buttery and soft, highlighting and shadowing Julian’s face as he lies beside me. I didn’t expect him to still be here, not while the plague ravages Vesuvia. He’s been spending so much time at the palace, working himself to the bone to try to stop the plague. Most nights he slips away from me before I wake, so it’s a pleasant surprise to find him curled up in my sheets.  
  
   I swing my legs off of the side of the bed, but an arm wraps itself around my waist. A pair of lips presses to the pulse point on my throat, warm and inviting. He smells of camphor and roses, of sleep and sex, and I find myself intoxicated.  
  
   “Leaving so soon?” he murmurs in my ear, low and throaty and absolutely delicious.   
  
   “The shop won’t open itself.” I yawn, pressing my back deeper against his chest. He’s naked from the waist up, as am I, a remnant of our coupling the night before.   
  
   His petal-soft lips ghost over my jaw, my neck, my collarbone, before resting back behind my ear. I can feel his warm breath on my skin, a pleasant tingle that drives me wild.   
  
   “It’s a few hours before I have to be back in the palace,” Julian’s fingers slide down my arms and dance across my flesh, bared breasts, the warm olive expanse of my stomach. “You could always delay opening for just a moment, darling.”  
  
   Heat pools between my legs, flashes of the night before cloud my thoughts and make me dizzy. His touch is like a drug, like the soft lull of poppies, and I can’t help but be enamored with it.   
  
   I turn to him and crush my lips against his, the answer to his question in rough and hurried kisses. His teeth scrape against swollen flesh, his tongue sliding into my mouth without hesitation. A moan escapes my mouth, a soft kitten-like mewl that makes a smirk curl on his face.  
  
   Julian crawls on top of me, his body lithe and lean, his gray eyes blown wide as he stares down at me. He looks at me like I’m beautiful, when he’s the work of art. All copper curls and marble-white skin, like a statue, like the finest paintings hanging in the Count’s palace.   
  
   His teeth sink into my shoulder, and I let out a quiet yelp. It’s not an unpleasant pain, and yet he soothes it away with his tongue and lips. A large, white hand cups my face, thumb pressed under my sleep-swollen eyes.   
  
   “I wish you didn’t have to go,” I gasp as he presses his knee firm between my legs, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”  
  
   Julian cracks a grin, but I can tell there’s a soft regret behind his slate-colored eyes. He’s torn, pulled between lust and duty, and yet I know I’m powerless to make him stay. “Well, darling, we’ll just have to use the time we have.”  
  
   His knee presses firmer against my center, and I roll my hips against it. I need his touch, his friction, the heat that his body provides.   
  
   “Such a naughty girl…” he purrs in my ear. His hand slides down my body until it reaches my breast, and he gives it a rough squeeze. Another moan escapes my lips, my body reacting straight to his touch.  
  
   “I want you,” I swallow, “I want more.”  
  
   Julian’s eyes darken, and he hooks his fingers underneath the hem of my smallclothes. The pads press into my flesh, a delicious pain that sends more warmth straight between my legs. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and sink my teeth into _that_ spot on his neck, causing him to groan and rut against my thigh.  
  
   “Tell me what you want, darling,” he demands, his voice deep and husky and uneven.   
  
   “I want you.”  
  
   He grins, and his fingers trail back up my stomach, fingers splayed over warm flesh. I roll my hips back up, trying to regain the friction of his form against mine, but he presses down harder.   
  
   “Ah-ah. You’ll have to be more specific.”  
  
   “I want you to touch me,” I whine. The words press past my lips with a wheeze, like all the air is rushing out of my chest in order to worship him.  
  
   Julian smirks, but doesn’t release his hold on my hips. “You want me to touch you where?”  
  
   I push my torso up off of the bed and catch his bottom lip between my teeth. I’m tired of his teasing, of his games, but he just growls into my mouth. His hand moves up my body and captures my wrists in one grasp, and he pins me back to the bed.   
  
_“Where_ , Nix?” he moans in my ear. “Where would you like me to touch you?”   
  
   My breath catches in my throat, and for a moment, I cannot speak. The entire world revolves around him, around his locks of auburn hair and his soft gray eyes, the muscles of his chest, and his big hands.   
  
   “I want you to fuck me with your fingers, _Ilya.”_ I snap as I grow impatient.   
  
   My demand is all he needs. Julian shoves my smallclothes down with his remaining hand and plunges a long digit inside of me. I groan into his lips and rock against him, begging him for more friction, for more of his delectable touch.   
  
   “I love it when you call me that,” he growls in my ear, “say it again.”  
  
 _“Ilya.”_   
  
   Julian withdraws his finger from my slick center, causing me to whine once more.   
  
_“Ilya,”_ I thrash and strain underneath his weight, moving and begging for him to touch me, to sate the hunger that thrums in my chest. “Please!”  
  
   He runs his lips over my jaw, kissing until he reaches that spot on my neck. Two fingers slam into my center as he bites down hard on my skin. My back arches off of the bed and I scream as my body wracks with his electricity, everything inside of me undone while the digits pump away.   
  
His thumb rubs at the sensitive bud of my clit, and he drops the hand that pins my wrists above my head. Instead, it tangles in my locks of thick black hair and exposes my throat, the smooth expanse of skin that he has yet to mark with his mouth and teeth.   
  
“I want to taste you,” he hums, his voice breaking when I prick my fingernails into the pale skin of his back. “Is that all right?”   
  
I nod, and he grins once more. His lips trail down my chest, lower, lower… My fingers tangle in his auburn curls, and he latches his mouth to my clit. The sensation makes me scream, wracks my body with a sob of pleasure. He drinks me in like a vampire eel, like he needs to wring my body of every last drop.   
  
“Julian, _please,”_ I scream while I pull at his hair.   
  
He pulls his face away from my center. His fingers still. “Please _what?”_  
  
I press his mouth back down, tears pricking at my eyes. “Please let me cum!”  
  
Julian licks his lips and delves back between my legs, stroking and licking like it’s his _gods damned_ job, and my body rips apart. Sews itself back together. I cry out his name, pull at his hair, sob, and sob until he pulls away until he’s kissing my lips once more.   
  
“Shhh… Now, there’s a good girl.” he licks his fingers, wiping my taste off of them, and it’s _obscene_. He looks like he’s just finished the most decadent meal of his life, and to be honest, he’d probably agree.   
  
I hold on to him for a moment, my arms locked around him to keep his body close to mine. Since Asra left, I’ve been so lonely. I don’t want this moment to end, don’t want Julian to leave.   
  
He shifts, and I hear the soft patter of his smallclothes hitting the floor. He’s bare, and hard in front of me, a work of art for my eyes alone. I lick my lips, my taste still heavy on my tongue, and reach forward.   
  
My hand wraps around his length, and the moan that escapes his lips is positively delicious. He’s like putty in my hands, soft, and pliant, all mine.   
  
_“Nix.”_ Julian breathes, and I crack a smile.  
  
“Nix, _what?”_  
  
“Oh, you naughty girl,” he nudges me back on the bed, his hands framing each side of my head. “Trying to get me to beg?”  
  
I drop my hand, and he hisses under his breath. “Nix, _what?”_  
  
Julian rolls his hips against my thigh, his hard cock pressed firmly against plush flesh. It takes everything in me not to moan, not to beg _him_ for the pleasure of being fucked.   
  
“Nix, I want to fuck you until you forget everything.”   
  
I reach out and grasp his hair, copper twirled around soft olive skin, and crash his lips down over mine. It’s a mess of a kiss, sloppy, all teeth and tongue and nails on skin and blood and screams.   
  
“I want you to fuck me, _Doctor.”_ I moan, and that’s all the encouragement he needs.  
  
His thick clock slides into my center, a rush of heat and stretch and it’s divine. My entire body is still so sensitive, so rife with orgasmic energy, that I nearly cum again right there.   
  
He peppers my jaw with kisses, so sweet and innocent, that for a moment I can almost believe that we’re doing this out of love, and not because of loneliness. That’s not at all what this arrangement is supposed to be.   
  
It’s a matter of convenience. Master and apprentice exploring each other’s bodies while the whole world comes crashing down around them. A way for us both to forget Asra, to erase his painful memory from our hearts.  
  
He shifts my hips, and the new angle causes him to hit a spot so sensitive that I see stars. I bite down on the side of my palm to hold back the scream, but he shoves the hand to the side and pins it under his own weight.  
  
“Nix,” Julian mewls, delicious and husky in my ear, “I don’t want you to be quiet. I want you to scream so loud that this whole city, that _Asra_ wherever he is, can hear you.”  
  
A warm blush settles over my cheeks, a moan escaping my lips as he fucks into me once more. It feels like a betrayal, for either of us to think of the white-haired magician when we’re like this, but part of me wants this too. Wants him to realize just what he’s missing, what beautiful thing grew in his absence.  
  
Julian pounds into me with an unrelenting pace, and I can’t hold back the noise any longer. I don’t care who hears, who knows. I suck in a shallow breath, air harder and harder to grasp as I approach the precipice of my second orgasm. I love this.  
  
 _“I love you.”_ the words escape my lips as my body shakes, and for a moment, Julian freezes. His gray eyes are caught on mine, but he doesn’t back away. He doesn’t whine or shout or protest.   
  
His lips crash back onto mine, and he continues his punishing pace, fucking me until he’s ragged, until he’s pumping thick cum inside me. He moans my name in my ear, _Nix, Nix…_ and when I open my eyes I realize that there are tears pricking his eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry,” I mumble as I run my thumb over the bead of moisture on his cheek. He hasn’t unsheathed himself from me, our two bodies still one. Julian shakes his head.   
  
“No, don’t apologize, darling,” he cards his fingers through my hair, surprisingly gentle despite all the tugging he’s done since we woke. “I love you too.”   
  
The words hit me like a dagger to the heart, but before I can say anything, a rooster crows outside.  
  
“Damnit… That’s my cue.” Julian huffs. He slides out from between my legs, and I feel so upsettingly empty. But, he’s right. He has to return to the palace. He has to try to fix this mess that Vesuvia seems to have found itself in.   
  
He stands tall and searches for his clothes. He has to wash before entering the laboratory at the palace anyway. I want to call out to him, to beg him to stay. If only this plague weren’t here—No. I can’t even say that. Without the plague, Asra wouldn’t have left. Without all this death, I wouldn’t have Julian.   
  
“You should make your tea, my dear,” he shrugs his shirt on, then his jacket, then gloves. “I’ll be back tonight.”  
  
My fingers ghost over my swollen lips, and I nod. “I can’t wait.”  
  
Julian leans down and presses a chaste kiss to my cheek.   
  
“I love you,” he says, but before I can respond, before I can reach out for him, he’s already gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
   I lie in bed for as long as I can, my hand splayed over the expanse of skin of my abdomen. Magic thrums through my fingers and pulls inside me, a warmth where Julian once was. I hate doing this, this spell that prevents his seed from taking route in my womb, but it’s a necessary measure. Neither of us wants to bring a child into this world, not while the plague still runs free.   
  
   When I do rise, the sun is high in the sky and warming the apartment above the shop with its rays. I run myself a bucket of bathwater, and scent it with lavender and rosemary, with laurel and sweet almond oil.    
  
   I dip a rag in the water, then run the damp cloth over my face, my arms and chest. Another dunk and I clean over my stomach, my thighs, my legs. I lean over the pail and dip my hair inside, letting each and every lock get coated with scented liquid.   
  
The only thing that’s left is my center, lips still gorged with blood and arousal and Julian’s cum. The towel feels so nice on the sensitive flesh, so warm.   
  
   It must be near noon now, and yet there aren’t customers lining up outside or threatening to bang down the door. Then again, people seem to travel outside less and less with every day.    
  
   I dump my spent water down the drain and shrug on a light dress, a gift from Asra many months ago. The fabric is soft and silky, sheer in parts, but it moves in a way that compliments the heat of my body.    
  
   It’s odd. Even after a particularly rough tumble, I don’t usually feel this tense, this sore. A tickle rises in my throat, and I cough once, twice. Nothing seems to relieve it. Perhaps a cup of tea would help, but when I turn towards the hearth my entire head swims.   
  
   I find myself on the floor, blood dripping from a new wound on my knee. The coughing comes again, this time harder, and I can’t seem to stop it. It hurts, and each breath feels like it takes days to fill my lungs.   
  
   I’ve seen this before, though I don’t want to believe it. No. Still, I haul myself up to my feet, my chest caving with every sip of air, and stumble over to the silver-backed mirror on the wall.    
  
   My normally olive skin is flushed, pale and clammy, but what’s truly damning… The scleras of my eyes are dyed an entire, deep scarlet. Broken blood vessels, the result of a lung-seizing cough.    
  
   The red plague. No. _ No _ . It can’t happen like this. I slam my hand down on the table, and the vase of roses in the center rattles and shakes. I ram my fist against it once more, and it clatters to the ground in a series of shards.    
  
_  No, no, no. _   
  
   I have to find Julian, have to see him one last time. He’s a doctor, he’s been working day and night trying to find a cure. It isn’t supposed to end like this. Not when he’s finally here.   
  
   The palace is a far walk from the shop, and I’m not sure that I can make it. Still, I have to try. I throw a cloak over my dress, despite the summer heat outside, and pull the hood down over my eyes.    
  
   For good measure, I coalesce an egg of magical energy in my hand, then crack it over my head. No one will pay me much mind, no one will chase me off to Lazaret to burn.    
  
   Another cough shakes my body, and it takes every ounce of my strength to leave the shop, to meander through the city streets while my skin boils and my head pounds. Perhaps this was a bad idea. After all, Julian said he would return to me by nightfall, but something still drives me forward.    
  
   I stumble and fall against a cart, knocking free several mandarins and apples and sweet dates. Normally I would pay, would buy the few bruised fruits and go on my way, but instead, I run as fast as my legs will take me.    
  
   My lungs seize in my chest again, and I cough, and cough, and cough so hard that I crash to the pavement. A pounding thump overtakes my head, and my body writhes once, twice…    
  
   Voices from the square assault my ears, shouts and greetings, a cacophony of happiness and despair and everything in between. The cloak around my head suddenly feels oppressively warm, like it’s boiling my flesh to bits. I try to push it away, but my limbs feel like lead, and my hands won’t stop shaking.   
  
   “Miss,” someone calls, but my vision is too clouded in red to focus. Are they talking to me? Or to someone else? “Are you okay?”   
  
   A figure, a dark blob of crimson on scarlet, moves in front of me, but they draw back quickly. “Someone call a doctor!”   
  
   My eyelids grow so heavy, and this time when I cough I can taste iron blood. It’s weighty and slick on my tongue, thick with mucus straight from my diseased lungs. I slump against the brick wall, the stranger’s voice echoing in my ears.   
  
_ Someone call a doctor… _   
  
   “D–Devorak…” I mumble, my words slurring as the fever consumes. “Dr. Devorak… I need him.”   
  
   The light fades, tunneling away from red to black until it’s gone entirely, but his name still lingers like a prayer on my lips.  _ Julian.  _   
  
   Please let me see him again.   
  


* * *

  
  
   Too hot, too much. Even the coolest breeze feels like torture on my skin, on the blisters and papules that coat every surface of my body. Someone tries to make me drink, but it hurts too much to swallow. Everything tastes of blood, and of bile.    
  
   I see a flash of white hair, dyed pink with my plague-ridden gaze. Someone places a wet cloth to my forehead, but it does nothing to cool the fever that rages through my bones. A whimper escapes my lips, hoping — No.  _ Begging _ for him to be there.   
  
_ “Ilya?” _ but the figure doesn’t respond. Perhaps they didn’t hear me, but deep down I know. Julian isn’t here. I don’t know where I am, but it’s not with him. “I’m scared.”   
  
   A pair of eyes falls on mine, familiar, but so distant. They stare down at me, a muddled mess of violet overlaid with red. Calloused fingers interlace with mine, and I hear it, a shaky whisper. “I am too.”   
  
   I wake again a few hours later, this time to banging and shuffling and someone shouting incoherently.  _ How could he leave you? Why did I leave? How do I fix this? _   
  
   I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. My mind is so muddled that I can barely decipher what they mean. Who left? Why did they leave in the first place? The shouting gets quieter, replaced with a hand on my hair, a cup of warm broth at my lips.    
  
_ “Drink.” _ the voice says, but I can’t obey. It hurts too much to swallow, to breathe, to do anything.    
  
   “Am I dying?” I ask.   
  
   The response never comes, but I know the answer.    
  


* * *

  
  
   Dying is a lot like falling. It’s fast and frightening, and you never know where you’ll land. It comes quickly, like a punch to the gut, everything falling away.    
  
   There’s no one there when the darkness falls over, and that’s the scariest part of all. I’ve never liked to be alone, not in life, and not in death. There was no hand to hold, no tears to fall.   
  
   Does Julian know? Did he even know I was sick? He left the morning I fell ill, and I don’t remember him coming back. Perhaps he’s dead too, floating somewhere in this endless expanse, though I can’t find him.   
  
   It doesn’t hurt anymore, but I’m still scared.   
  
   Why am I so scared?   
  


* * *

  
  
_ “Nix…” _   
  
   The sound of the name pulls me forward, a hand to grasp, a tether to tug. It’s not a name I recognize, but there’s something soft about it, something that pulls deep in my chest.   
  
_  “Nix…” _ _   
_   
   I awake to a pair of violet eyes staring back at me, to a shock of white hair and a soft smile. This person is a stranger, and yet I feel safe in his arms. He smiles, and it feels like a pang in my chest. Like something is missing, like someone else should be here.    
  
   My face grows wet, and the man wipes the moisture away with his thumb. His touch is so gentle, and yet not what I want, or what I need.    
  
   The man scoops me in his arms and carries me off to bed, and I can’t protest. I don’t have any words. They linger in the back of my throat, stuck like flies in wax, unable to break free. He seems to notice the discord in my eyes, the tears that fall even though I can’t remember why.   
  
   “It’s okay, Nix,” he murmurs into my dark hair, “you’re home now.”   
  


* * *

  
  
   Gray eyes haunt my dreams, and I often wake crying, my head pounding so hard that I’m sure it’ll burst. Asra’s always there to comfort me, to slip me sweet herbs and make tea that stops the ache, but it’s not the same. Something’s missing, though I can’t remember what.   
  


* * *

  
  
   The first time Asra leaves, it feels like my world is falling apart. It feels like a betrayal, like a knife in my back. Thinking about it too much, however, makes my head hurt.   
  
It seems like almost everything brings on the migraines these days. A vase of roses, a flash of auburn hair. I spend so much time chasing off the pain, chewing on herbs until everything dulls.    
  
I feel almost like a child when he’s gone. Alone, helpless. I’m a ghost of a person, a walking wraith with only fragments of memories that come in fits and spurts, only while deep asleep.    
  
He grabs my hand, threads my fingers through his. His eyes always look so sad when he’s about to leave, so guilty. Like he knows that I don’t want him to go.    
  
“I’ll miss you,” he says. It always feels like we’ve done this before, in another time, another world.    
  
It always feels like something terrible will happen.   
  
Nothing ever does, though. It’s just a feeling. Perhaps an echo of a life I once led, one locked away behind whatever door lies in my brain.  _ You’re safe. _ Asra always tells me, and I believe him.    
  
So why does it feel like something awful is bound to happen?   
  


* * *

  
  
   Gray eyes. Gray eye. _Julian’s_ eyes.   
  
   It all comes back in the Hanged Man’s realm, in the shroud of mangrove branches, and it sticks deep in my core. I died. I got sick, and I died, and Julian didn’t even _know._   
  
   My head pounds, and throbs, and aches, but I can’t fight it any longer. This is the truth. This is what happened to me.   
  
   “Nix…” he says as he holds me close in his old office. His arms wrap around my body, chin resting on my head. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
   It all makes sense now, everything. All the pieces are sliding into place and the pain lessens. My sickness, my death. It wasn’t Julian’s fault, or even Asra’s.  
  
   “You must have been so afraid,” he says, but I shake my head. I don’t know if I was, or if I wasn’t. If I’m even speaking the truth.   
  
   “It doesn’t matter,” I sigh, my breath broken by a half a sob. “What matters is that you’re here now.”   
  


* * *

  
  
   The sun streams in through the curtains, dancing across Julian’s face as he pretends to sleep. This scene feels so familiar, so close that I can feel its warmth on my skin. I reach out and cup his cheek, and his lips curl into a smile. This is good. This is right. This is what we fought so hard to protect.    
  
   “I love you,” I say.   
  
   He presses his lips to my knuckles, a feather-soft touch that makes my chest flutter. “And I love you too.”    
  
   I watch him, enamored at the rise and fall of his chest. So beautiful, so  _ alive. _ This feels good, feels right. Everything else in the world could fall away and crumble to ash, and I think that as long as he’s here with me, everything will be okay.   
  
   “We have a moment before Asra will come to wake us,” Julian grins against the shell of my ear, his voice a husky whisper. “Can you think of any ways to spend the time?”   
  
   An infectious smile engulfs my face, one so wide that it makes my cheeks burn. “I think I have an idea or two.”    
  
   His lips meet mine, fingers tangled in locks of hair, two bodies becoming one. I may not be complete, yet I am whole.   
  
  
  


  
  



End file.
